February 25, 2006

Londonderry rejects ridgeline wind power 2-1

The Vermont town of Londonderry held a special vote yesterday about a wind power facility on the very prominent Glebe Mountain, whose ridge they share with the town of Windham. The result was 425-213 against the project.

The Brattleboro Reformer reported the following informed voter:
As she got into a large pickup truck, another woman said she voted yes because her vehicle uses a lot of energy.
The Rutland Herald talked with project developer Rob Charlebois:
"Clearly, we have work to do at educating the public about the benefits of the project." ...

Catamount Energy recently hired a Burlington public relations firm to get its message out. Charlebois noted there has been a sophisticated advertising campaign against his project for months.

One ad used silhouettes to compare the size of the proposed Glebe Mountain turbines to both the Statue of Liberty and the Bennington Battle Monument, as well as the Searsburg wind turbines, which is the only existing wind facility in Vermont. [Click here to see the graphic.]

The proposed Glebe turbines would be much taller than all three. Catamount Energy and a Japanese energy company, Marubeni Energy International, want to build 19 wind turbines, each about 420 feet tall, on 3.5 miles of ridgeline that is privately owned.
One of the challenges of course for Catamount and their PR firm is making sure people such as the woman with her large pick-up truck continue in the happy delusion that big wind will allow them to continue their needlessly wasteful use of energy, even that which has nothing to do with electricity. The problem is that the facts are so clearly against them. Big wind won't even affect our fuel use for electricity. [Click here for "The low benefit of big wind."]

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